One of the three best movies of 2005

Rating: 10/10 (29 January 2006)

The Island, together with King Kong (my #1) and Serenity (struggling with The Island for #2 place), are my favorite movies of 2005. Each has left a profound impression on me.
I'm not going to summarize the plot, since it's been discussed at length before. Instead, here are some points that need to me mentioned in order to do the film justice.
The Island, if one feels bound to refer to other movies, is basically Logan's Run meeting Bladerunner. It asks some of the same questions; most significantly one of profound philosophical import: how do you define a 'human being'?
Sidebar: The often-mentioned Gattaca, on the other handand I'm pointing this out this for the benefit of those reviewers still struggling with comprehension of the fundamental difference between the moviesasked if the value of human beings depends on their genetic makeup; just like one might ask if a handicapped person is of equal value as one who isn't.
Should a cloned ('replicated', 'copied') but conscious human being be accorded the same rights as one created and brought into this world in a more conventional manner? What is consciousness anyway? How do you detect it?
How far will human beings go to preserve their lives? (There's a truly disturbing part in Michael Bay's commentary on the DVD regarding this. Truth apparently is even more sickening than the occasionally quite troubling fiction of The Island.)
The Island deals with these issues in all seriousness; but not in a pretentious or 'arty' manner, or with the ponderous gravitas that might have eventuated in the hands of a 'serious' director. It also answers them; at least as much as it is possiblefor, after all, who _can_ say what 'consciousness' actually 'is'? We all _know_ what it is, but try to _define_ it and you're instantly stepping on philosophical quicksand.
All this is accomplished in the context for an 'action' movie, and one by Michael Bay at that. That instantly gets a lot of folks' hackles up; for Michael Bay can't possibly make a movie with depth, right? Well, think again, for this one is. An object lesson, if we need one, to teach us that not every action film has to be a one-dimensional Tom Cruise or Will Smith vehicle. The Island strikes an exquisite balance between the relief provided by humor and the physical- ness of some very well done action, moments of reflection, and a multi-layered plot with lots of hidden meanings and question marks, as well as a satisfying denouement.
Above alland unlike Gattaca, which was a very 'self centered' movie; with the protagonist really only interested in himself and his own plans and tribulationsThe Island ultimately went beyond that and toward displaying a sense of social responsibility. One of the most touching moments of the movie occurs when Lincoln and Jordan spin dreams of what they would like to do, and how they could just go far away and live like 'real people'; and then he says "...but after...", meaning after having tried to help "all those people we left behind", who are about to be destroyed (well, 'killed' or 'murdered' would be more appropriate) as their makers try to 'start over' a new generation of clones with less troublesome predilections.
The decision to risk their future for the sake of their fellow clones, is the ultimate proof of Lincoln's and Jordan's humanity; and in the process they help to redeem the one who has hunted them relentlessly, and who rediscovers his own humanity as a result of his interaction with them.
One issue has raised justifiable questions: how did the clones 'know' all these things they knew? Or, how did not just they, but apparently another whole lot, become infected with apparently spontaneously-generated memories of their 'sponsors', that is the people they were cloned from?
One possible answer is that memories are encoded in the DNA of a personbut that doesn't make much sense. There is nothing to suggest in current scientific research that this is either possible or that it happens. Another theoryand this is where 'speculation' enters the fray is that (slightly extending theories such as those developed by the likes of Rupert Sheldrake or Roger Penrose) people with identical genetic makeup have a 'connection' that goes beyond mere genetics; that they are 'linked' (telepathically?) in some way. Maybe that's how their 'memories' seemed to have 'grown' spontaneously over the lifetimes of the clones. Maybe that's also why, in some ways, the clonesand especially Lincolnseemed to have acquired certain characteristics of their 'sponsors'.
I don't know and neither did the God-potentate Merrick, who was highly and unpleasantly surprised by this turn of events; though for a few moments he appeared to be genuinely stimulated by the notion, until he realized that it was interfering with his carefully laid-out plans and DOD funding. He never found the explanation, before he died at the hands of one of his creations.
So, is there a suggestion here that there's more to life and humanity and the mind and every- damn-thing than is currently accepted by science? I know some people aren't comfortable with that notion, and, being an atheist myself, I'm not bringing God into this eitherbut is the notion that we haven't figured out the fundamentals of 'human nature' really so preposterous? Is it unreasonable for a movie, and especially one so unashamedly 'entertainment', to suggest that maybe we don't know everything, and that our ignorance, combined with the delusions of omniscience in some, is likely to come and bite us in the butt?
I think not. This theme, by the way, is also picked up in that other cinematographic gem, Serenity, though from a slightly different angle.
Till Noever owlglass.com Author: Keaen, Continuity Slip, Seladiënna